The Paper Boys have plans for the Triskel. Starting with brunch.
Ciarán O’Regan and Colin Ryan, co-owners of Paperboys, a new cafe in the Triskel, plan to fill the arts centre with music, art, and brunch.
Changes are afoot at the Triskel Arts Centre.
Paperboys, a new café which is accessible via Tobin Street, opened at the end of June. The new owners have grand plans for the outdoor garden space which looks out onto South Main Street, with outdoor markets and DJs amongst them.
And in the coming months, management at the Triskel will reveal who will be taking over the performing space that was once home to Corcadorca, the renowned theatre company where actor Cillian Murphy made his start.
It’s an arts space that in many ways is in a constant, but managed flux. The latest addition to the Triskel line-up is Paperboys, its name intended to honour Cork’s famous newspaper sellers, who were once heard throughout the city.
The new cafe is a joint venture between Colin Ryan, owner of Hansum Burger in the Marina Market, and Ciarán O’Regan, a co-owner of Ritas, a pizzeria in Ranelagh, Dublin.
Ciarán and Colin are also interested in staging events, particularly outdoor gigs in the courtyard garden which faces onto South Main Street.
“Our main goal taking it on was the events and the space itself,” Ciarán said, on a recent visit to the cafe.
“The garden is incredible, you’re not getting a place like this in the city centre,” he added.
Ciarán believes Dublin and London are places where brunch spaces ‘hit’ a lot more, and Paperboys aims to introduce some of that culture to Cork.
They want to create an enjoyable space, “somewhere where you can get an all day brunch, go in, have a drink if you want. We have beer on tap and we’ll have wine, and we’ll bring in cocktails, so I suppose it will be that fun kind of brunch place.”
Outdoor markets in the courtyard are also in the pipeline.
On the menu at Paperboys are hoagies and brunch with potatoes, eggs, black pudding. The drinks line-up doesn’t yet colour outside the lines: coffee, wine, Beamish, Heineken and cider on tap.
The outdoor events would be the first of a number of types of events that Paperboys hope to host, adding to the cultural mix on offer in the Triskel.
They also want to create a space where local musicians and artists can come and perform and exhibit, before eventually using space in the Triskel.
Paperboys is not alone here: starting this summer, the Opera House, closeby at Emmet Place, are trialing a similar cultural initiative, with lunchtime gigs scheduled throughout the summer in the Half Moon Place cafe.
“We’re hoping to take on some dates slowly,” Ciarán said. Ideally, they’d like to use the cafe and the courtyard garden for gigs and exhibitions, “whether its DJs or local artists or just try to do a bit of everything, really.”
Ciarán hopes to bring a younger crowd to the space, and bring back an energy that has been lacking in the daytime.
“I suppose the last few years they (the Triskel) didn’t have that life coming through the door,” he said, referring to the pandemic.
“But now, people walk into the cafe, coming in and out to the gardens, so there’s new life coming in here. I think we’re bringing a younger generation that haven’t been here before.”
As one of the principal cultural spaces in the city, the Triskel has an important place in the city’s arts and music scene. The main room, an old church, hosts an arthouse cinema and is used to stage concerts. A small art gallery sits upstairs, while there is a viewing point for the historic Christchurch crypt in the basement.
Meanwhile, in the space just next door to Paperboys once occupied by Corcadorca, the theatre group that wound up last year, has been put out to tender.
The auditorium is a simple, utilitarian black box space; Corcadorca had been using the space for week-long residencies, but it has been idle since the theater group finished up in October last year.
“We're delighted Paperboys has opened and are looking forward to welcoming everyone over the coming weeks and months,” Gillian Hennessy, head of marketing at the Triskel told T+D.
Gillian said that a panel is currently assessing the tenders and proposals for the space once occupied by Corcadorca, and an announcement will be coming.
Upcoming events in the Triskel include a performance by Munnelly & McGowan on August 4, to celebrate the reopening of Crowley’s music shop, and a performance by the Carducci Quartet on September 9.
In the art gallery, Then I Laid the Floor, by Brian Maguire, James Concagh, and Robert Chase Heishman, runs from July 15 until September 9.
Paperboys is open from Wednesday to Sunday from 10am - 5pm.
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